The last few years have been rough on the Furry community. From the death of Rainfurrest to Today's debacle with Kero, the negative light on furries keeps on getting brighter. Though today I'll be discussing something that was disastrous in it's effects, but seemingly was swept under the rug. The question on my mind is . . . What happened to Pounced.org?
No seriously what happened to this site? For those who are unfamiliar, Pounced was a dating site for furries, with the intuitiveness of Tinder, but the interface of craigslist. Furs from across the country and beyond were absolutely enamoured with this site. Opening in March of 2003, the location based service saw rave reviews and was well received until it's untimely demise in June of this year. Many outlets covered the issue, citing a controversial law congress passed, but I believe it's deeper than that.
F.O.S.T.A or the 'Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act' is cited as the main reason Pounced shut down, even the site itself says this. In an official statement the site released, the P.R. director had this to say
“FOSTA attempts to make Internet sites such as pounced.org liable for the way users use the site in an effort to address sex trafficking and prostitution. FOSTA increases our liability significantly and chips away at one of the primary reasons we as a small organization can provide services to the community - the protection that had previously been offered to us by Section 230 of the Communications Decency act”
Now that some months have gone by I can understand why the site was itching to shut down, but I still feel it was unnecessary. The bill has an article that in summary says 'The facilitation of prostitution, even if unknowingly, the host site is still liable.'
Now pounced was a volunteer site, so this kind of bill would've damaged them severely, but it certainly did more damage to the community than anything. People found the love of their lives here according to the testimonies, and it completely displaced them among the few other sites out there. After digging into view count archives I found that Ferzu's average amount of visitors spiked to the highest in it's history during the week of Jun 24-30th . . . The same week Pounced shut down.
Though while I can ramble on and on about this, I feel a podcast is more appropriate. Join Jeff, SeaWolf_LA1, Jeeve, and I as we discuss the repercussions of this bill and more in the Next installment of Paws Down.
